Biographies, biographers, and interesting people

I was not prepared many years ago when the publisher of my first book asked me what name I wanted to appear on the cover. To tell the truth, I was just excited about finally getting published. I had never given any thought to the name on the cover. But since the editor asked, I figured it deserved some consideration.

I briefly thought about using my maiden name, writing as Barbara Lynch Kramer, but I’ve always had trouble finding books written by authors who use three names. I forget the order of their names and don’t know what to type in for the search. I also toyed with the idea of using my middle initial – Barbara A. Kramer. I don’t remember why I didn’t go in that direction. I guess I just figured it wasn’t necessary. After all, how many authors would be named Barbara Kramer? Turns out there are at least three. Nampeyo and Her Pottery by Barbara Kramer was published in 1996. That was soon followed by The Bud Wilson Dream Book by another Barbara Kramer.

Those books made me regret that I had not put more thought into what name I would use, but by that time, I had a couple more books out and I figured it was too late change my name. If I did, people might think my first books were written by someone else. So I continued writing as Barbara Kramer and told myself it wouldn’t be a problem. After all, Nampeyo and Her Pottery is a very specialized book about a Hopi-Tewa potter named Nampeyo. The Bud Wilson Dream Book is a novel for adults. Both are completely different than my biographies for children and young adults. There shouldn’t be any confusion, I reasoned. Except, there was.

People who create lists of books showed Nampeyo and Her Pottery as one of mine. I contacted those people and explained that I didn’t write it. Hopefully, they made the correction on their lists because I try hard not to take credit for what other authors have done.

I ran into another problem with my name a couple of weeks ago when I decided to finally set up an author’s page on Amazon. I’m not the most technically gifted person, so I was very pleased with myself when I finally got a page set up with my books on it and even a link to my blog. That is until I decided to test it. I typed my name into Amazon’s search and came up with a listing of my books. However, the link to my author’s page was not there. Instead, there was a link to an author’s page for Barbara J. Kramer, who apparently does not exist. When I went to her page all that was listed was two books, The Bud Wilson Dream Book and my biography about Alexander Graham Bell.

I contacted Amazon and their technical department solved the problem. But the experience left me wishing, once again, that I had given more thought to the question my first editor asked: What name do you want to go on the cover?

This never occurred to me as being a potential issue, but I understand it. Thank you for sharing. I have a fairly common name, so if I ever have the pleasure of being published I will take extra time to consider this!